Making It Count
by DrWhoFan71
Summary: "Once you find something good, never let it go..." You only get one shot at life, one shot at high school, one shot at happiness. Kitty Wilde is pretty sure that she's on the right road; she's popular, financially secure & gets good grades, yet she can't shake the feeling that something's missing from her life. Plus, a certain songstress is never far from her thoughts... [Karley]
1. Who Knew Life Was So Complicated?

_**Hi guys! Gosh, it's been a long time since I've posted a fanfic on here. Sorry to any of you who've read my other stories and are awaiting updates; hopefully this fic will help cure me of my writers' block and get me back to writing regularly :)**_

_**Speaking of this fic, this is my first foray into the relatively new and brilliant pairing of Karley! I confess that as**_** Glee _hasn't aired here in the UK yet, I haven't seen much of this season, but these two have captured my interest & have tried to keep up with all their interactions via clips :) I_**_** know that some people have described Kitty and Marley as Faberry 2.0 and while I see the similarities, it's worth noting that there are significant differences which set them apart as characters in their own right and make them great :)**_

_**The fanfiction community for these two is slowly growing and I have to appluad you guys, some of the stories on here so far are fantastic! I even ended up making a community for the pairing to collect it all together, though that's relatively easy to do anyway seeing as almost all fics about Kitty are Karley-related lol. Great job to all!**_

_**Anyway, I'll stop with my rambling now lol and let you guys get on with the story. I hope that you like it! :)**_

**_[UPDATE 11/01/13 - having now seen the first few episodes of season four, I've realised that the timing in these early chapters is a bit out of sync because this is set several weeks after New Directions hitting rock bottom due to the lip-sync drama, but nothing's happened between Jake & Marley yet. Therefore I guess the best explanation is that I've shifted the beginnings of Jarley to a few weeks later than when they actually happened in the show. Sorry about that!]_**

* * *

Not for the first time in her life, Marley Rose was exceptionally confused.

Everything about William McKinley High School strained her mind; she was sure that half of the teachers shouldn't be allowed to be within ten feet of children, let alone work with them (Coach Sylvester and Ms Castle being just two examples, though the former seemed perfectly docile when it came to her own child), while most of the students looked like they'd all been lifted from some national register of teenage stereotypes. The hallway culture of slushie warfare was ruthless to the extreme, something Marley had already garnered considerable experience of considering that she'd only been at the school for a couple of months.

Being unpopular was something that Marley was largely familiar with from her last school, but at McKinley everything was made so much more personal. The usual bullying for simply being a 'loser' was bad enough, but the taunts about her mother made it difficult to bear. Coupled with the fact that Marley had always been insecure about her own weight, she was struggling to maintain the positive, optimistic outlook on life which had always got her through bad times before.

In fact, the way that the bullying was personally affecting Marley was another thing that confused her. Because when she really thought hard about it, she'd come to the conclusion that while the jeers and insults from the jocks and cheerleaders were hurtful, she'd always been able to turn the other cheek. Her mom had many a time assured her that bullies only lashed out at her as they did because they were lacking in the maturity to do otherwise; at the end of the day if they didn't 'get' her then it was their loss, and she needn't let them get to her because she knew one day, when she was a radio singer warbling her way to success, none of what they'd said to tear her down would count for anything. She'd even admitted to herself that she felt more able to be herself here than she ever had anywhere else, where she'd always fought so hard to be what people wanted her to be.

Why, then, was it affecting her so much this time? Why was she feeling so insecure and crying herself to sleep more often than she'd like to admit, even to her mom? After much pondering on the subject, Marley had identified one person who, despite all the slushies and the name-calling, she for some reason still valued the opinion of; someone she wanted to impress despite the vicious nature of the girl's verbal attacks on her confidence.

Like nearly everything else in this town, Kitty Wilde confused her. Because for some inexplicable reason, Marley wanted to know the other girl; she listened carefully to the blonde and took every harsh word to heart. She knew that she should be resenting Kitty for the way she treated her and be shutting out the comments about her weight, but instead she valued them. Once again, this confused her, but that wasn't the only thing that she'd noticed about the HBIC cheerleader.

_Is it weird to feel worse for Kitty than I do for myself?_ Marley wondered. She hated the fact that the other girl felt the need to be mean to be popular; the possibility that Kitty was simply a nasty person had never crossed her mind, she was so sure that there was something else influencing the other girl's behaviour. She saw it in Kitty's eyes every time she slushied or insulted her; a mask of cold indifference which, to Marley, screamed that there must be a much less confident or otherwise more human Kitty underneath. She'd glimpsed looks of regret or sadness when the cheerleader thought no-one was looking, and apart from herself Marley was sure that no-one was. Kitty was surrounded by a hierarchy of bitchy cheerleaders and Neanderthal jocks who couldn't be bothered to spot the angel flailing desperately for help in their midst.

Every cruel word that Kitty said still hurt her, but more because it put yet another boundary down between them – one she would have to struggle to overcome if she were ever to achieve friendship with the other girl – than because of the words themselves. And yet Marley still believed every jibe Kitty offered at her weight or her looks; she still took them as something she must change about herself to be good enough for Kitty. That was something she'd never done for anyone else before and had always been told vehemently by her mother to never do – _Never change, pumpkin, not for anyone_ had been the woman's kind, consoling words – and the fact that she was willing to do so for Kitty confused her even more.

* * *

"Okay, suggestions for morning slushie targets – go!" Kitty's pencil was poised above the paper, ready to scribble down the names of the doomed victims.

One of the brattier freshman Cheerios started talking straight away.

"That stoner kid was perving on me as I left the locker rooms. He's a freak, anyway."

Kitty made a note of the name _Brett_, before a blonde Cheerio sat beside the first piqued up,

"If we're talking of freaks, that Unique kid should go down too. I just don't get how the hell he thinks he looks cool in that get-up? I mean like, seriously, cross-dressing is soooooooo eighties. He needs to get with the times."

Kitty duly noted down Unique's name, but her knuckles were white as she gripped her pencil in frustration. Some of these girls were just so small-minded, it was ridiculous. They didn't have an ounce of cunning about them whatsoever, and their insults would have made Kitty laugh rather than cry if she'd been in the losers' positions.

Not that she ever planned to be, of course; Kitty was top dog at McKinley at the moment, and her intent was for it to stay that way. While her time as head cheerleader had been short-lived before the re-installation of Brittany, her leadership had proved popular with many of the new girls on the squad (a considerable number had graduated last year) and Brittany's lack of authority made it easy for Kitty to keep her power when it came to being HBIC – that's 'Head Bitch In Charge, thank you very much' with a slushie on top. Brittany was a great dancer, but these girls were like sheep which needed to be led, and Kitty knew that she was the girl to stamp the team's dominance back on McKinley's social map after a year dominated by the puckhead hockey players rather than the footballers and cheerleaders.

"Ugh," said the Cheerio who had spoken first, "and don't forget the whale's daughter. I'm pretty sure she got today's clothes out of the dumpster – there's what looks like a bloodstain stain down the front of her top and it makes her look even more ugly than normal."

Now, Kitty may have been Marley's main tormentor when it came to directing insults at her face, but she hated hearing the other girls making snarky remarks about the lunchlady's daughter – and she had no idea why. Kitty, having already seen Marley from across the parking lot when she drove into school that morning, knew perfectly well that the red stain on the front of Marley's plain but once nice-looking blouse was the result of a cherry slushie thrown, on Kitty's orders, by the same girl who was now pronouncing it as a bloodstain – which just showed how little attention Marley's aggravators paid her.

Kitty, on the other hand, found herself unintentionally picking up on every heartbroken glance, every terrified look and every slouch of the shoulders as they tried to break Marley's spirit again and again. And yet, after every slushie attack and every namecalling session, Marley would pick herself up, hold her head high and be just as infuriatingly happy and friendly the next morning.

It fascinated and frustrated Kitty at the same time. She'd almost, for a split second, been disappointed when she'd found out that the girl's mother was the lunchlady, because it automatically toppled Marley from her precarious position of moderate popularity secured by last year's glee club Nationals success to the bottom of the social ladder, where no-one of a standing such as Kitty's could ever talk to her to do anything other than hurl an offensive or degradatory remark. Well, that had certainly been the case after the whole lip-sync fiasco, anyway.

_Which was your fault again_, she reminded herself, remembering as she'd been the only person in the auditorium with the balls to call the club out on its pathetic performance, excising their reputation (including Marley's) in just a few seconds.

Why this bothered Kitty she wasn't entirely sure, but she'd taking a sort of interest in the girl which she couldn't shake. What made the situation even more unusual was that Marley had proceeded to take Kitty's almost-boyfriend (though to be fair, Kitty had been the one to snatch him from under her nose in the first place… hang on, why was she being fair to Marley!?), yet still the almost defensive attitude which had taken an unwelcome root inside of her for the taller girl continued to grow. She had to bite her tongue to stop herself from telling the silly girls in front of her to shut their stupid little mouths; their banter was always simple-minded and trivial but it never really bothered Kitty unless it concerned Marley. She made a mental note to make sure that Coach Sylvester set the offending Cheerios extra laps at the end of this practice.

_Why are you doing that?_ asked the quiet but piercing voice in her head. _Why should they be punished for talking about Marley in that way? Unless…_

As always, Kitty stifled the voice before it began to question her too much; she couldn't afford to take her eyes off the prize in an environment as ruthless and hostile as an Ohio high school, and Marley Rose the lunchlady's daughter sure as hell wasn't going to make her drop the baton.

What gave Marley the right to be so damned happy all of the time, anyway? She was like a blazing ray of sunshine and positivity that Kitty couldn't extinguish, no matter how hard she tried; it irked her, because in the positions there were in she should be the one happy with her life and Marley should be wishing to be like her.

And yet, despite her second-hand clothes and her overweight mother, Kitty sometimes caught herself wishing she could have a life more like Marley's. It was a ridiculous thing to wish for, because she had everything; yet being on the top of the social pyramid was surprisingly unsatisfying. She countered this by making the person she was most jealous of suffer as much as possible, no matter how much resistance a small part of her put up – the part that wanted to chase after Marley following every slushie to help her clean up and console her.

So yes, it's true – Kitty Wilde was jealous of the poorer, less popular girl. She wasn't happy about it, but that was just how the facts stood. She worked extra hard to punish Marley for being happier than her when it should be _she_, Kitty,that got the satisfaction that came with her perfect life, but however much she covered up her guilt with even more brutality, Kitty couldn't hide from herself at least that she didn't feel at all like Marley deserved the attacks. And that _bothered _her.

Why did that bother her? She wasn't particularly concerned about anyone else, or at least if she was, she hid it much better. The way that Marley began to dismantle her walls without even knowing it infuriated Kitty almost as much as the fact that no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't manage to bring the other girl down from her optimistic heights.

Angry at herself for wasting her time thinking about Marley rather than pondering who else she was going to need to socially destroy next to keep her precious but precarious position atop the social pyramid, Kitty swung her locker shut with a firm _clang_ and stormed angrily out of the locker room, leaving the other Cheerios to giggle amongst themselves about who knows what.

* * *

_**So, what do you guys think? Should I continue? Please read and review! It means a lot :) x**_


	2. Eye on the Prize

**_Hey all! Okay, so firstly I'd like to thank everyone who followed, favourited and reviewed the last chapter; I'm glad that you guys enjoyed it because I know I'm a little rusty in the writing department :) I appreciate it a lot, and thanks especially to ClosingTheGoddamnDoor for the awesome & thoughtful review :) Not to say that the shorter ones aren't awesome too! :D_**

**_Also, there are events from _****Britney 2.0 ****_in this chapter which may differ slightly to what actually happened in the episode because I haven't seen the exact scene, due to the fact that I live in the UK and season four hasn't aired over here yet, so sorry about that :) I was really annoyed to hear about how the club (especially Tina and Artie) blamed Marley for what happened at Sectionals though. I know that you awesome people in the Karley community are really great at updating stories every couple of days, so I'm sorry that this update took a bit longer - speedy updates aren't my speciality lol ;P_**

**_Anyway, I hope that you guys enjoy the chapter! :)_**

**_[UPDATE 11/01/13 – Having now seen the episode I've gone back and adjusted some of the dialogue, but the scene still isn't exactly the same as in the episode – mainly because it's set several weeks later, after the pep rally has destroyed what was left of New Directions' reputation and hurled them back down the social ladder.]_**

* * *

You'd think that going into high school with a guaranteed foot up on the social ladder would be great. To be born into a wealthy, well-regarded family who could provide for your every need… well, Kitty wouldn't know. While her idol Quinn Fabray had possessed those attributes, Kitty had - to be perfectly honest - caught a lucky break at McKinley High. Coach Sylvester had been looking for a new head bitch and she'd fit the job description.

Sure, the blonde had still been raised amidst relatively high expectations, but it was through her own experiences that she'd grown to gauge everyone around her by whether or not she would have to tear them down to further her position. Up until she was about 12, Kitty had been a relatively quiet kid – not particularly popular, but not a complete social reject either.

And to think, she'd even liked it that way.

One person who _had _been unpopular was Sally 'Square-faced' Jenkins. She was once Kitty's partner in Chemistry and the future Cheerio had never been able to see why the popular kids had taken a particular dislike to the girl, aside from her dorky glasses. Sure, she was a bit on the weightier side, but she wasn't exactly fat either, and was always nice enough to lend her some gloves when they were doing experiments and Kitty had forgotten hers (which happened more often than her present self would ever allow).

Kitty remembered exactly when she'd realised that the world was cruel, and to get anywhere in life you had to be even crueller. Belinda Cardell's high school jock of a brother had come to pick her up on his motorbike, and Sally had held the class up for five minutes by ratting out that Belinda had been copying her work, resulting in a lecture at the end of the lesson.

Everyone was in a particularly sour mood with Sally for holding them up, and Belinda was furious that the rest of the school had mostly already dispersed – she seemed to have had her heart set on everyone watching her ride off on her brother's motorbike. Everyone in the class, being just kids, had regarded the jock as the coolest visitor the school had ever had – way cooler than the nice but boring man who'd come in last week to talk about anti-bullying.

Kitty remembered with a cringe how Belinda and three of her cronies had 'slushied' (a word unfamiliar to her at that point, but one that rolled off her tongue easier than her own name now) Sally in the middle of the parking lot, to cheers and jeers from many of her disgruntled classmates.

Belinda's brother had come over and Kitty had been so sure that he would chastise her and tell her that what she had just done was wrong… yet instead he gave her a high-five and they simply rode off, laughing.

As much as she'd wanted to help Sally clean up, what had become clear to Kitty at that point was that, with the world of high school looming for her in just a couple of years, she would have to be ruthless to avoid that same type of ice-cold (literally) humiliation.

She resolved from that point onwards to not allow herself to be taken advantage of as those girls had of Sally. She shut all of herself away behind a façade of cold indifference and as time wore on she built her walls taller and taller until most of the time, even Kitty forgot about the scared 12-year-old girl hiding behind them.

She might have snapped out of her bitchy phase in that first year before it was too late if her father hadn't started drinking at around that same time. He wasn't a bad man and Kitty loved him, but troubles at work and an ever-growing number of rows with Kitty's mom led to him coming home later and later every night.

Kitty was most often in bed when he did, and she tried her very best to muffle with her pillow the sounds of him bellowing at her mother. One particular argument concerning her, however, she had been unable to escape, and something had slipped out that brought tears to her eyes – and even at 13, Kitty Wilde never cried.

She now knew that she was a mistake, nothing more; an inconvenience at best, despite the supposed love that her parents showed her - which she now presumed had been nothing but a front. She'd grown to doubt the own validity of her parents' love, so high had her walls been built.

This was why Kitty strived so hard to achieve in everything - to be popular, be head Cheerio. She wanted to actually feel like she was worth more than a broken condom, but those insecurities kept biting back at her and threatening the tears which she so despised.

So she froze them with a demeanour of ice; by the time she reached high school, her well-practiced insults could sting sharper than any mosquito bite.

Besides, Kitty's lucky break into almost immediate popularity at McKinley could only have been a sign of God's approval at her plan, right?

_Right_, she convinced herself, as she deposited her thirteenth slushie of the day onto an unsuspecting nerd, ignoring the sensation in her throat that felt liked she was being choked.

Because the real Kitty Wilde was kicking and fighting inside of her… she just couldn't allow her to ever get out.

* * *

_Hang on… did he just wink at me?_

Marley blushed furiously as Jake Puckerman held her eye from across the hall. He spotted her reddened cheeks, which only proved to make her blush more profoundly, and smirked before closing his locker and slouching off down the hall, leaving Marley stunned that he'd even bothered to look at her.

_You're the lunch-lady's daughter, stupid_, a harsh voice in her head hissed at her. _Why would he even like you in that way?_ _Answer: he wouldn't._

Unique spotted that she had dropped back and slowed her pace to come level with the less confident girl, her eyebrows raised. "I know that look…"

A barely concealed smirk came across Unique's face.

"OK, girl talk. It's pretty obvious that there's a boy involved here. Who've you got your eye on?"

Marley blushed faintly before brazenly admitting, "Jake's kinda cute." She honestly wasn't sure whether the ridiculous amount of internal embarrassment she was experiencing at present was some form of those romantic stomach butterflies she'd heard so much about or something else entirely, so she made the presumption that it was.

Her friend's expression soured and her eyebrows rose even higher. "Oh honey no, bad seed."

Now it was Marley's turn to cock an eyebrow; to be honest she was slightly downhearted at Unique's reaction. She was trying her best to do this whole 'high school crush' thing right, like she'd seen in the movies.

"C'mon… he's an artist," she protested. The boy's interest in music certainly suggested that they might have something in common.

Unique scoffed. "You mean pick-up artist! Marley, everywhere you go in this school, you see wreckage of girls' hearts who thought the same thing as you. And he's only been here for a few weeks! He's even been known to troll the girls' gym class," Unique persisted. "Let me be clear - he's a womanizer."

Marley was sure that she could've got by without the ensuing Britney performance, but she appreciated her friends' concerns nonetheless. It was just… Marley had seldom attracted any sort of attention from anyone before, let alone from a guy like Jake. In fact the person aside from Unique who'd probably paid her the most heed so far was Kitty and while she'd like to, she sure didn't see herself being able to form a friendship with the frosty girl anytime soon.

Plus, Jake seemed kinda charming. Behind all the bravado, the clothes and the attitude she was pretty sure that he was a genuinely nice guy, and a sensitive one at that. She was pretty good at getting past people's outer projections to the real them; she could read most people like a book. Like Kitty, for instance…

Marley had the sudden realisation that an awful lot of her thoughts led back to the blonde girl, and she cursed herself for thinking too much. She barely noticed Jake until he was standing right in front of her.

"Hey, Marley…" he began, and the rest of the conversation passed in an almost starstruck haze to her. _Why would he bother to do this if he doesn't like you? _the voice in her head proclaimed gleefully. Maybe now she'd actually have someone who'd bother to send her a cute text in the morning calling her beautiful…

She heard the words 'maybe', 'we', 'sometime' and 'bleachers' and before she knew it, she'd allowed a consenting word to pass her tongue. Jake grinned at her at lolloped away, looking pleased.

Only then did Marley stumble out of her haze and register the disapproving looks she was getting from Unique and Tina. In spite of them, she shrugged happily; maybe things were staring to go right for her.

* * *

_********__So... I hope that I managed that scene OK. I'm also slightly worried that there was too much exposition from Kitty and not enough stuff actually happening, so if you guys have any concerns or advice about that or anything else feel free to let me know in a review! Or, y'know, any feedback at all would be much appreciated :) Thanks for reading!_


	3. The Bottle

**_Hey there all! So, here's the next chapter :) I won't ramble as much as I usually do, but I will say that I spotted a somewhat significant continuity failure in chapter 1, which I have now gone back and changed. Sorry about that! I felt a bit of a fool going back and finding it lol. Ah well ;P_**

**_Also, I didn't get much response to the last chapter (there was eventually one review, so a big thanks to D-Wadegurl for that! :D) so I'm not sure how this story is going down with you guys. I know that it's a massive cliché but reviews really do help me both to improve the story, and to give motivation to actually write it, so they're very much appreciated if you have the chance. Any comment, good or bad, is taken on board, even if it's just to let me know that there are people still reading :) Thanks to everyone who has favourited or followed!_**

**_And finally… HAPPY NEW YEAR! :D Hope that you all had a great Christmas and have an awesome 2013 :) Enjoy!_**

* * *

_Oh, hell to the no!_

Kitty was vaguely aware that the inside of her head sounded like that Jones girl from last year's glee club – believe it or not, she had bothered to look up their Nationals-winning performances on YouTube, because she actually kinda liked singing – but right now she didn't care.

What _did _bother her was the fact that one of the freshman Cheerios had just alerted her to the fact that Marley… no, _the Rose girl_ (since when was she on a first-name basis with her prey?) was wearing Jake Puckerman's jacket.

Once again, she initially was unsure of _why _this outraged her so much, before quickly assuring herself that it was because she'd decided that Jake was hers. It couldn't be anything to do with the fact that her Cheerios jacket would look ten times better around the brunette's shoulders than the oversized cloak of black leather which she presently was showcasing…

_Shut it, Wilde, and focus._

She'd been buttering Jake up as best as she could earlier as if readying a lamb for the slaughter, so she'd be damned if she was going to lose him to Mar…the Rose girl now. She and Jake had practically agreed to go on a date, if agreeing to meet 'somewhere' after school 'sometime' counted as such (and in this case, it did in Kitty's mind), so the taller girl had no claim to the jock, aside from being unbearably cute.

_Unbearably what!? I think that the lesbifest express just pulled into town…_

Kitty shut her thoughts up for the umpteenth time that day alone and stormed towards her locker, only to see the culprits of her rambling thoughts standing just ahead of it. _Oh, it's on, sweet cheeks. Um… I mean, fat cheeks_, she corrected herself.

"I just realised, I'm still wearing your jacket…" Marley was laughing nervously in her innocently sweet way, _as if she didn't know. She's as much of a scheming bitch as I am, _Kitty tried to convince herself, but her attempts proved frustratingly futile.

Now Jake was scanning his eyes over _that _body and Kitty nearly saw red. How _dare _he…

_Don't get too carried away Kitty; why should you care anyway?_

"It looks pretty good on you," he slurred in reply, and a response formed itself in Kitty's head before she even had time to blink.

"Bet it looks better on me," she cut-in smoothly, a fake smile plastered across her face. It was fake, she justified internally, because she had absolutely no desire to don the Puckerman boy's… no, _Jake's_ no doubt sweaty and over-heavy jacket. But she couldn't let Marley wear it either, that was for sure.

She was pissed off with Jake for obviously turning on the charm with Marley after their 'date agreement' –

_Oh, so that's what you're calling it now?_

_Shut up._

– so she focused her eyes on the taken aback girl to her left.

"We're dating now. Didn't Jake tell you?" She layered the second sentence with as much patronising fake-innocence as she could, at the same time wincing internally as she saw the disappointment in Marley's eyes. Those beautifully blue, wide and innocent orbs which she just might fall into if she wasn't…

_FOCUS!_

She turned her gaze expectantly on Jake as Marley stuttered out an answer in the negative, finding it much easier to fix the jock with her accusing glare than it had been to try to break down Marley without suffering a lapse in the concentration which kept up her own fragile façade.

_Fragile is _not _a word to be used in relation to a Wilde! _her mental instincts scolded her, _especially not in relation to her! Why the hell would _she_ make you fragile?_

That was another thing which annoyed her about Marley; the girl had the ability to jolt Kitty's otherwise stable front of bitchiness and indifference which she put up to protect herself, and she hated it. The idea of being vulnerable to another person was an alien concept to Kitty, not least to someone who had so much to gain from her downfall, like Marley.

_She'd never do that, though. She's too nice_, the voice in her head told her, and Kitty found herself increasingly annoyed that even her own thoughts seemed to be waging war against one another.

She looked down as Marley handed her the jacket, not prepared to look the other girl in the eyes (which were no doubt filled with tears on her account yet again), and slung it around her shoulders. Immediately its muskiness and the general smell of male odour made her want to retch, but she smiled sickeningly sweetly at Jake instead to hide her discomfort as Marley walked away, still looking infuriatingly adorable.

_First cute, now adorable…_

_I thought I'd told you to shut it, random voice._

Except… what was that other smell? It certainly wasn't what she'd describe as masculine; not in terms of someone like Jake, anyway. It was light, gently scented and all the things that he wasn't; breathing in quietly she quickly deduced that the smell was also coming from the jacket.

_It must be Marley's perfume…_

Linking arms with Jake without really registering it (as if by default), she set her thoughts elsewhere on more important matters. That scent… reaching into the jacket pocket, her hand circled itself around a small glass bottle.

_Bingo._

* * *

Well, that was probably one of the most humiliating moments of her life so far, right up there with being made to sing in front of several hundred distant relatives at her aunt's birthday party with a faulty mic and being slushied by seven Cheerios at once.

Marley walked briskly with her head down through McKinley's corridors, avoiding the most crowded areas and making her way to the bleachers, where she'd sang with Jake just hours earlier. She had thought of going to the auditorium or even the choir room, but right now she preferred the fresh air – it might help her to clear her madly confused thoughts.

Exiting through a back door, Marley stopped and her shoulders slumped even further than they already had done (she must cut a dejected figure indeed) as she remembered that she'd left her perfume in Jake's jacket. Marley wasn't one for luxuries – she couldn't be, in her situation – but the small bottle had been a summer treat from her mother, who had noted how much Marley complained of smelling like her previous school's kitchens all the time.

Exhaling sadly, she resumed her short journey to the bleachers, picking one of her favourite spots nearer the top of the structure. As she sank into the surprisingly chilled metal seat, Marley squirmed uncomfortably, both at the sensation of cold sinking into her behind and at the thoughts she was having. How come she could never figure out her own life enough so that it at least made some sense to her?

She had established that she didn't blame Kitty for the way she acted, and while she knew that most people in her situation would (and would have good reason to), she felt absolutely no malice towards the shorter girl for this latest incident. She just felt humiliation and dejection, and the biting sensation that this was all somehow her fault.

She thought that Jake had liked her, so she'd gone for it – that's what people do, right? They date, they exchange jackets, they have conversations that actually mean something… but now Marley was wondering if the disappointment she was feeling mixed in with the loneliness and hurt stemmed from disappointment that she had once again failed to do what normal people – successful people – are supposed to do, rather than disappointment specifically concerning the fact that she couldn't be with Jake.

_So maybe the slight discomfort you were feeling earlier _wasn't_ those romantic butterflies then…_

"No duh," she said aloud, frowning at her thoughts. She'd honestly been happy and flattered just because someone had actually showed an interest in her - because it suggested that perhaps she wasn't as much of an ugly screw-up as people told her she was… _no such luck._

Marley sighed again. High school sucked.

Not to mention that _Kitty Wilde _now had her perfume. While she didn't hate Kitty, she was pretty damned sure that the blonde would find some way to make her regret ever daring to wear it to school – to try and feel just a little bit better about herself.

She wished that she could stop Kitty from having to lash out like that…

Once again, Marley found herself worrying more about Kitty than anything else in her life. Feeling even more confused and annoyed at herself, she began to weep quietly.

* * *

Kitty set the bottle down on her desk and squinted at it; it was very small, and the contortions in the glass made it very difficult to figure out if there was anything legible inscribed into it. After a few minutes of study, she decided that there wasn't, and there was no label either. Stumped, Kitty let herself fall backwards onto her bed in frustration.

Glancing up slightly, she winced as something piercingly reflected the light from her desk lamp into her eyes. Pushing herself up, she realised that it was a small protrusion on the underside of the perfume bottle.

_Why are you doing this anyway?_

_Because… it smells awesome, k?_

_You're saying that Marley smells awesome?_

Moving back to her desk, she picked the bottle up again and tilted it slightly; as she did so she realised that there was indeed a small inscription just above its base. It was pretty miniscule, though; holding it back up to the light, she was able to make out the mark _6 0 9, Fl. & Co._

* * *

Half an hour and a considerable amount of internet-based detective work later, Kitty knew that _Fl. & Co. _was a small floral-centric shop in downtown Lima, and that _6 0 9_ was an identification code for the scent in the bottle.

_Don't you dare, Wilde. Why the hell would you? You could be doing homework, or ten times more worthy things…_

Ignoring what she'd come to see as her conscience (whereas she was beginning to realise that it was quite the opposite), Kitty grabbed her Cheerios jacket and the small glass phial and left her room, swinging her door closed as she went.

Her destination: downtown Lima.

* * *

_Two days later_

Marley's day was already shaping up to be a bad one. She'd been slushied twice, her change of clothes had another old stain on them and she was running five minutes late for class – which consisted of two periods of dissection in biology. Marley didn't usually mind science, but she'd always been a little squeamish.

Arriving at her locker huffily, her fingers (still sticky with corn syrup) fumbled with the combination as she struggled to hold her books in her other hand; her bag had become so drenched in slushie that she'd had to ditch it, because her work was getting damaged even when it was supposedly dry because of all the syrup it had absorbed.

Hers was a doomed cause, and the stack of textbooks slid from her grasp just as she entered the final digit of her combination, eliciting a groan and she tried as quickly as possible to gather them back up again.

She was seriously beginning to doubt her own philosophy of not letting everything get to her - for tolerating it all in the name of some better day in the future, because right now her life sucked, and she couldn't see it getting any better. She didn't even have her perfume to quell the overly sweet stench of cherry syrup.

Straightening up, Marley reached out to grab her notes from her locker when she noticed something glinting tucked away in the corner. She certainly didn't remember keeping glass in her locker – heck, she didn't even drink so it couldn't be a liquor bottle – so she had no idea what it could be, aside from…

Frowning, she reached in and her fingers circled around the patterned bottle, pulling it out into the light; Marley's eyes widened as she realised what it was.

This definitely wasn't hers. She'd only ever owned the one bottle, and it was about four times smaller (and much less expensive) than this one. Turning it around it her hand, she realised there was a post-it note stuck onto the back.

_X_ was all it said; a large, loopy letter signifying a kiss (as one might type in a text) with a small smiley in the corner. She peeled the note off carefully to search for any more clues as to the identity of its purchaser, and revealed an intricate silver label, reading _The Flower Botique & Co. Since 1907; finest flora, fauna and botanical scents_

There was a gap and a black-and-white illustration of a flower, but Marley's eyes were drawn to the name of the perfume.

_L'essence de Rose._


	4. What the Hell, Wilde?

**Hey guys! Sorry that I haven't updated in so long – I realised that it's been five months, which is way longer than I'd ever planned for it to be :S Real-life got a bit crazy – ironically I've got exams in the next few weeks, yet I've actually chosen now to start writing again lol :D Probably not the best timing, but ah well…  
****So, anyway, here's chapter 4; I've kinda almost skipped over the events of ****_The Break-Up _****and done a bit of tweaking and merging of other scenes, so sorry about that if I get some things a bit wrong chronologically! And just to warn you, there is some strong language in this chapter. Reviews are warmly welcomed as always, whether long or short. Hope that you enjoy!**

* * *

"Nice perfume, chubbers. What is it, the sweet stench of second-hand store?" Kitty quipped before she even had time to think as Marley passed her in the hallway, the other girl's flowery scent wafting through her nostrils.

The shame bit back at her within moments as she saw Marley lower her head and tear up slightly, quickening her steps as she turned the corner.

_What the hell, Wilde!? You spend $40 on perfume for someone you don't even know and then make fun of _her _for wearing it?_ she chastised herself furiously. An unfortunate Cheerio wandered across her path and Kitty shoved the girl aside in anger, hating that she had to keep everything cooped up inside. She needed an outlet to launch her frustration at, but unfortunately she always seemed to pick Marley as that outlet.

_You just don't want her to suspect that it was you who bought her the perfume. After all, she'll know that she left it in Jake's jacket…_

Kitty hoped that Marley would be naïve enough to believe that Jake had enough sweetness and initiative within him to be capable of spending the time seeking out the shop and picking a perfume he knew would make the brunette smile. Not that he'd have a damned clue in reality.

_Getting a little jealous, are we? _taunted the voice in her head, which had been far too active recently. She couldn't exactly shut it up in the way she would do to others (aka, by insulting them) because she'd just be shouting at herself…

It didn't even make any sense. Why would she be jealous of Jake getting the credit for doing something so…

_Crap._

She did most definitely _not _do something romantic for Marley Rose. Nu-uh. No way.

_Yeah, right. And that Blaine kid in glee club doesn't single-handedly use half of Lima's hair gel supply either._

Gritting her teeth, she just pressed onwards towards the Cheerios' locker room in annoyance.

* * *

"Speaking of competitions, shouldn't we, like, start preparing for ours?"

Marley had to admit that Jake had a point. While she'd loved all of the performing she'd got to do since joining glee club, the one thing that had thrown her slightly was that the matter of Sectionals and what they would perform hadn't yet been raised even once by their teacher.

They'd held Invitationals a couple of weeks ago, which hadn't gone too badly… her mom had been in the audience, which she'd been both insanely excited and immensely nervous about. It had been her first performance as part of the New Directions, so her jangling nerves were to be expected, but as soon as she'd walked out on to that stage and seen her mother's encouraging smile, the worries which were plaguing her had evaporated. Performing out there with her fellow glee-clubbers… she'd felt so alive.

Until Coach Sylvester had set off the fire alarm and evacuated the whole auditorium halfway through their second number, of course… but nonetheless, she'd loved every minute of it.

Mr Schue dismissed Jake's concerns with some lame excuse about how Sectionals was a long way away yet, but Marley was too busy pondering to really take in what he was saying. This was unlike her; Marley usually paid rapt attention in most of her classes (aside from Biology, which she hated, and Sex-Ed, which made her uncomfortable), though although glee wasn't exactly a class, it meant just as much if not more to her that she flourished here.

It was just that the mystery of the identity of her somewhat romantic perfume donor was clawing at the back of her mind. She highly doubted that it was Jake; the boy was charming and could be sweet but Marley was pretty certain that he wasn't capable of such a meticulously thought-out gesture. And yet, it had been his jacket in which she'd left her perfume… hadn't it?

She could have dropped it at some point, she figured; on the bleachers, maybe, or in one of her classes. The fancy penmanship of the accompanying note suggested that it had written by a girl, which puzzled her even more. It wasn't that she'd have a problem with a girl liking her – she'd had her own girl-crushes in the past, though they'd never come to anything – but for the simple reason that she rated the chances of a boy liking her as pretty low, so they'd be even lower for girls because as far as she knew, there weren't many out lesbians at McKinley. It was simple math, or at least that was how Marley figured it.

Mr Schue clapped his hands and Marley snapped out of her thoughtful daze, blinking as her fellow glee clubbers began to rise from their chairs and drift towards various corners of the room. Confused, she prodded Unique and gave her a questioning eye. Sighing, the diva rolled her eyes and waggled her finger in mock scolding.

"You really should pay attention, y'know," she teased, prompting a guilty look from Marley. "He just told us to split into pairs and think of songs which give us inspiration. I'm pretty sure that he set that three weeks ago."

Chuckling lightly, Marley inclined her head in agreement and linked arms with her friend.

"Right, okay… so then. Any ideas?"

Unique's gave her a small but devilish smile.

"Heck yeah. You heard P!nk's new single yet?"

* * *

Kitty thought that she'd stopped surprising herself long ago, so it was somewhat unexpected when her heart leapt when she saw the audition poster for _Grease_ pinned up on the school noticeboard.

It had been a few weeks since the perfume incident, as she was now referring to it - in her head only, of course, since she would obviously never dream of confessing to anyone that she'd done something nice for someone, least of all Marley - and the glee club's rep had surprisingly recovered enough to the point that they were confident enough to put on the school musical without it being a complete disaster. Kitty didn't get this school; one week all of the popular kids were like some sort of anti-glee mob, yet not long later they'd forgotten about them entirely and they'd returned to the relatively comfortable existence which they'd apparently enjoyed for so much of last year. It was almost as if they were all part of some TV show in which the writers had no sense of continuity, Kitty thought bitterly…

Point being, she found herself with the unusual urge to audition for a role. She loved _Grease _– it was part of her secret stash of cheesy DVDs which she kept in a locked drawer in her room.

_Not that you need to keep it locked…_

That was true, Kitty admitted to herself. She hardly ever had friends around because she didn't really have any, unless you counted Cheerios who hung around with her to look cool – and Kitty most definitely didn't. She spent most of her evenings in her room on her own because people were either too afraid to ask her to parties, or they simply assumed that she had somewhere else to be. This didn't bother her too much, because the company of popular kids wasn't exactly what she would call interesting or riveting, but it would be nice to have someone to hang with from time to time.

_Get your thoughts back on track, Wilde!_

Just a few weeks ago, Kitty wouldn't have dreamed of signing up for the school musical, but now that the glee-hate had died down she didn't see any reason why not. Several of the girls on the Cheerios had played minor parts last year and would probably be roped into doing so again this year, so she wouldn't look entirely out of place.

She'd have to play Sandy, of course – she was Kitty-bitchin'-Wilde, and to maintain her image she couldn't settle for anything less. Not that it would actually bother her if she got another role, so long as she got to do plenty of singing and dancing.

The thought struck her that singing and dancing was exactly what glee club was for, but she hurriedly suppressed the thought, not liking where it was taking her. Stepping forward with renewed vigour, she seized the pen hanging beneath the sign-up sheet on a dangerously-thin piece of string and scribbled her name, signing it with her signature "X".

As she left, she noticed Jake Puckerman, out of the corner of her eye, approaching the sign-up sheet while trying to looking as casual as possible. For a moment, she considered asking him to audition with her – they hadn't really gone anywhere with their "relationship" (if it had even been enough to call it that) and he'd called it off last week after two rather bland half-dates. Oddly, it hadn't bothered her in the slightest, until she'd remembered that he'd now go crawling back to Marley.

Once again, Kitty tried her best to ignore exactly _why_ this bothered her.

Point being, auditioning with Jake would be both good for her prospects in the musical and also would annoy Marley. After all, she deserved it for taking her man, didn't she?

_No, and you know it._

Kitty sighed. Sadly, even her iron will couldn't suppress that fact, so she kept walking away from Jake and the notices board and turned her thoughts to what song she could sing to kick as much metaphorical ass as possible in her audition.

* * *

Standing up to people felt good. Marley didn't do it as often as she'd like, and she got a bit heady from the adrenaline rush when she did, but she certainly felt a lot stronger, at least for a short while, and more confident when she did rile up enough courage to do so.

She didn't know if she'd ever have the guts to stand up for herself – something that she personally doubted was worth doing anyway, seeing as people were usually right about her as far as she could see – but when the people she cared about, like her mom or her glee friends, were the victim then it was a different kettle of fish altogether.

When Coach Sylvester had started badmouthing off about transgender teens, it had been instinctual for Marley to defend her friend, and the situation also gave them the perfect chance to channel that lioness-like defensive spirit into their audition (it turned out that Mr Schue's assignment a few weeks ago had been kinda useful after all). She was pretty sure that they'd rocked it.

She could sure do with channelling that lioness right now.

Three Cheerios had her backed up against a wall, filled-to-the-brim slushies in their hands and gleeful malice in their grins as they advanced on her. The torment hadn't been so bad for the last couple of weeks, but she was still keeping a change of clothes in her locker – and evidently with good reason. Glee's reputation may have recovered slightly, but she was still the lunchlady's daughter.

Just as one of the girls began to lean forwards and pull her arm backwards in preparation to launch the ice-cold beverage at Marley's resigned face, a shout from across the corridor made the cheerleader freeze.

"Hey! Stop!" It was Ryder, the sweet but clumsy football player she had befriended the other day.

The lead bitch of the little band of cheerleaders made a 90-degree turn on her heel to look right at Ryder as he approached, almost as if she was sizing him up. Her head titled to one side, and for a moment Marley thought that she was going to slushy him too, but then she saw Joe and Sugar appear at the other end of the hallway, looking curious. Her smirk vanishing as she recognised that she was outnumbered, the black-haired girl clicked her fingers and marched away, her fellow Cheerios following behind her.

Marley exhaled in relief. She was wearing her favourite top today (why had she been so stupid?) and was also sporting a new bag after her mom had received her paycheque for the month.

"Thanks," she said bashfully to Ryder, who nodded awkwardly before smiling.

"Don't worry about it," was his friendly reply. "Hey… nice perfume."

Marley blushed slightly.

"Thanks."

Could Ryder be her mysterious perfume-giver? Marley quickly dismissed the idea; she had only known the boy for a few days, and she'd received the gift right back when glee club had been in the very bottom of the gutter of high school popularity.

Ryder look as if he was about to say something more, before they were joined by Joe and Sugar.

"Thanks for helping out there, man," said Joe, addressing Ryder. "You're like, a modern-day good Samaritan."

Ryder received the appreciation with another nod, while Sugar beamed at him in her quirky way.

"Well, um… I'll see you guys later." He strolled away, and Marley got the impression that he had been slightly over-whelmed by her fellow glee clubbers. Marley knew the feeling – it had all been a little odd when she'd first joined, but then again they were now almost like her family. Tina seemed to have a grudge against her for some reason and several of the others could be a little stand-offish at times, but she still felt like she fit in much better there than with any other clique at this school.

"You coming?" asked Sugar as she and Joe began to drift away and towards the locker. Marley broke out of her reverie and nodded.

"Yeah, sure."

* * *

Kitty was on fire today. She'd been churning out deviously insulting one-liners all morning, had scored an A+ on her practice paper in science, was acting Cheerios captain for the day because Brittany was off sick and now she was confident that she would kick ass with her audition, which was in just a couple of minutes. She was stood confidently backstage, half listening to dreads kid churn out some sappy acoustic number for his audition and half psyching herself up.

_You can do this, Wilde._

_I know that I can. Shut up, annoying voice._

_Wait, now there are two of us?_

_Hell yeah._

Kitty wondered vaguely if she was going slightly insane as dreads kid finished his performance to raucous applause from the judges. Though she'd seen him several times at local Bible meetings, she had to picture the sign-up sheet to remember his name (Kitty had a pretty impressive photographic memory).

The guy's name was Joe Hart, she recalled; he'd signed his name in a loopy, old-fashioned script right above hers, which she'd capped off with her signature "X"…

_Shit._

Marley had better not have seen that sign-up sheet…


End file.
